Russia attacked multiple cities across Ukraine with missile strikes on Monday morning, including the capitol, Kyiv. Ukraine is accusing Russia of targeting civilians with these strikes and President Zelensky filmed a video shortly after, declaring that “we are dealing with terrorists.” The death toll continues to rise, but as of now we know, there have already been multiple civilian casualties reported. Widespread power and water outages have also been reported in Kyiv and much of the city remains without either.
These latest attacks seem to be in response to the explosion of a bridge which links Crimea to Russia which occurred on Sunday. The Kerch bridge serves as critical supply route for Russian troops in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the explosion as an act of terror carried out by Ukraine. Putin even went on to say, “This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure.” Some see the bridge as a symbol of Putin’s claim to Crimea and the Russian President may see it as a personal attack because it came just hours after his 70th birthday.
The missile attack on Monday was also felt in Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and 11 other cities across Ukraine. Video and photos from the strikes clearly show that apartment, office, and civilian buildings were targeted by the Russian . In his video response, Zelensky also stated that Russia has “two targets: energy infrastructure and people” and that Russia “wants to sow panic and chaos, to destroy our energy system. Ukraine had been before this enemy appeared, Ukraine will be after it.”
